Most Workers in North to Receive July Salaries on Time

About 500,000 workers in private companies and public institutions in the North will receive their July salaries even if they were absent in compliance with Home Front Command instructions. Some employees will receive their paychecks today, but most will receive them later. As usual, employers must pay by the ninth of the month.

The July salary will include the basic monthly wage, without travel expenses, overtime or shift bonuses as of July 12. Two vacation days will be deducted from employees' annual quota to help defray employers' costs.

The salary agreement for July was part of an agreement signed Thursday by the treasury and labor representatives. Public-sector workers will receive their full July salary, regardless of whether they were absent from work during the month.

Dozens of technology companies in Haifa and the North also announced their intention to pay their workers for the full month without deducting vacation days.

July's salaries for employees of 23 local authorities, mainly in the Arab sector, who have not been paid for between one to six months, has yet to be resolved.

The chairman of the Clerks', Administrative and Service Workers' Association, Leon Morozovsky, yesterday called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to intervene "in order to put an end, once and for all, to the disgraceful affair of withholding the wages of tens of thousands of workers in local authorities in the North."

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